Beethoven •Name: Ludwig Van Beethoven •Born: Bonn, Germany. December 16th, 1770 •Died: Vienna. March 26th, 1827 His first works as a musician •1789 – he worked in the German court to support his family. •1790 – Funereal cantata with Neefe. •1792 – Beethoven goes to Vienna to work with Haynd •He also studied with Schenk, Albrechtsberger and Salieri. •1794 – he amazed the aristocracy •1795 – his public debut “Heroic decade” • From 1803 to 1812 symphony no. 3 opus 55 symphony no. 8 opus 93 Impaired hearing •1802 – Beethoven realized that his impaired hearing was incurable. •He became a solitary person because of his deafness. •1814 – Beethoven offered his last concert. •1818 – He became completely deaf and he had to use note books for conversation. A love story •Beethoven always chose unavailable women from the aristocracy, married women or both. •In the letter to his “eternally-beloved”, he expressed all of his feelings to the only women that could love him back. •Maynard Solomon realized in 1977 that this woman was Antonie Bretano, a merchant’s wife from Vienna •His ethics and his afraid to marriage made Beethoven gave up to this relationship though all the emotional problems it meant. “Late period” • His profoundest music reflects something of what he had been through. • There are seven piano sonatas in his ‘late period’ – – – – – Turbulent Hammerklavier Rebarbative fugue A Choral Symphony, no.9 in d Minor (Ode to Joy) String quartets Spiritual depth 1826 - 1827 • 1826 – Beethoven got pneumonia. • 1827 – he died • More than 20000 attended the funeral. • Beethoven had become a public figure. • His hand scripts and possessions were sold.